The Reader Berlin

PRESENTS

STREETS OF BERLIN:
ANANTHOLOGY

EDITED BY
Victoria Cosling
Published by The Reader Berlin CONTENTS
Text coplright @ individual authors 2015
The moral rights ofthe author have been asserted.
This book is sold subjcct to the condition thar it shall not, by Editor's Note 0l
way ofüade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or A Word from our Judges 03
otherwise circulated wilhout the publisher's prior consent in
any fomr ofbinding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition, including this Horst-Wessel Stadt b-t Studden
will 0i
conditiorl being irnposed on the subsequent puchaser. fre,{nöil b} WillBentle} 22

A Monkey on a Horse b1 James Carson 45

B'\r'w.thereadcrhcrl in.conl
Blood Red Oxfords. Size J9 b).Emil] Cataneo 6l
I/rrger b] Jessie Ke]l '19

One Thousand Nine Hundred Nineteen b! Julia Lackerma) er 94

The Jars Miller
b; Alice 104

Junk for Suckers b-\' Lizzie Robens II 6

Ecl,pse b)'Abb) Sinnott 134

Gegen Entgegen b-\' Simon Ward 149

Contributors t66
Editor& Judges t70
 Clipper murnrured something. Then he turned on his
side and looked at nre with bleary eyes. 'What do you think

a garden rca1lr' looks like?' A MonkeY on a Horse

I thought abou( it, l'eeling a calm sensation spread James Carson

through my body. 'Well, I think they're very beautiful.

And bright. Bright with colouß greens and yellows and A middle-aged couple pause in liont of my table She's
wearing a lloaty, white smock; he's in a
green cagoule'
browns.'
'Grass?' They're arguing in Slovene, or possibly Slovak
l can't

'Definitely. And birds.' understand what they're saying, but I'm able to decode

she
'Flowers'l' their body language: he wants to continue sightseeing;
wants to smother hirn in his sleep They cross into
Unter
'Yep. Trees too, and bees.'
the cnd?
'Mmm.'Clipper's eyes drooped shut in pleasant den Linden, still bickering. Was that us' towards
ptrblic?
reverie. Shametessly exposing private tensions in
'And kites. Do you know what a kite is, Clipper?' I l'm the only ore lunching alfresco The tables and
perhaps in the
tumed to him but he was aheady asleep. My gaze shifted to chaiß have been assembled outside the cafö'
hope of igniting sunrmer. The mid-day sky
is unpromising'
the large figure on thc cross, which hung over thc altar. The

woman nailed to the beams, her hands bleeding, her face the colour of three-day old mushroom soup I drain my

cappuccino cup and excavate the remains of

the creamy
downtumed and lamentable. Some called her Magdalena.
in pill-box
Some the Redeemer. Others simply called her Mother. foam with my spoon. Across the street' bellboys
hats and tight trousers are hauling trolleys
piled high with
A gust of wind blcw in fiom outsidc. I lay down beside
Clipper and tucked a rug around us both. I closcd my eyes expensive luggage into the Adlon'

and waited for the sound of the rain to waslr over my

dreams.

44 45

"...and cvcn as the Red Anrry rvas approaching, the
waiters were still serving dinner in the banqueting hall. It
was the oDly hotel... Oliver. are you listening?"
lwasn't. Or, at the time, I thought I wasn't. IJut since
last summer, Ray's ramblintss havc been cscaping tiom my
subconscious like air liom a slow puncture.
The gusty rvind qarrics angry voiccs ovcr fiont Pariser
I)latz. Iranian cxilcs arc dcmanding retribution for atrocities
committcd againsl their countryrnen. Bencath tricolours
charged rvith the Shah's lion, they'rc brandishing larger-
than-lili photographs of their dead.
I took a photograph ol Ray over thcre, two years ago, to
the day. It's the last one I have of him. his anns embracing
one ofthe honey-coloured legs ofthe Brandenburg Gate.
"lt's not every day you get to hug a national
monunent!"
Aftcrwards, he wanted one ol'us kissing. And I knew it
wouldn't be.iust a peck.
"Act your age, Ray, thcre's pcople looking!"
"Grcatl Show them what they're rnissing! Sincc whcn
was a bit ol camal knowledse denied to sixty-sorrethings'.)"
But the moment had passed, the photograph remained
un-takerr.
46
heavy-lboted jogger thuds past' pursued by
his
A
to
panting chocolate Labrador lt still doesn't take much
take me back,
Floyd
He'd gone ovcr to borrow a blender from Maureen
and corne back with a German Shepherd'
"He's called Smoky, isn't he gorgeous!" Ray was
struggling to contain the lirrry bundle in his amrs
There
was no point in arguing. t knew it wouldn't
be long before
the cralt
the dog -ioined the line of fads: the chcss club'
classes, that bloodY accordion'
In faimess, even after the cub had tumed into a woll''
came back
Ray was still playing the proud parcnt They
The dog
one afternoon, atler two hours in Vesey Park'
basket'
drained his water bowl and subsided into his
Ray caught rnY raised eYebrow'
"Well. he needs rhe exercise," he said'
"lle's not the only one," I muttered Which was true'
He'd been piling on the pounds since his retirement
Just a
year later, even his raincoat couldn't hidc the thick
lblds ol
skin.
He'd ignored the relnark and headed tbr the kitchen'
"l'rn just putting the kettle on"
47
 "lt won't suit you. And no biscuits, do you hear? "Apart tiom dance", says Floppy Hair, "Pemilla hates
Raymond!" dance."
The domestic rh)1hms scemed so unrenrarkable. Now, Big Specs nods, "This dressing is very good isn't it")"
when one drops into my head it.s like an archaeological "Honey mustard", says l'loppy Hair' chasing a baby
find. I thought we were growing okl togcther Two old tomato round his plate.
quecns sailing into the sunset,
They have another discussion, this time about

conceptuäl an.
Shrieks of laughter fill rhe air. A hen pany is sexually "lt's sacrificial. isn't it']"
harassing two fäke East German guarcls. On the near corner
"Yes, but it's also a luxury."
olPariser Platz, a guard outside the American embassy I wish Ray was here.
yawns. Abovc him, thc Stars and Stripcs are at half-mast, "l want to bring my art to thc moment", says Ilig
lbllowing another massacre in tlre land ofthe f'tee. Specs," I don't want mercly to take photographs. I want k)
Two young men anive, placing thcir platcs on the table express mysell' photographically.
beside rninc. The tioppy haired onc is bigging-up sorneone ! loppy Hair points his fbrk at him.
called I'emilla. "Pemilla will lovc that. She's very pro that."
"Shc left the Arts Council to head-up the agency here. What t'un we could have had with this.
Shc's very VERY good at what she does." Ray: "I don't want mcrely to drink."
The onc with big, fäshionable, spectacles nods. ..1 can't Me: "No, I want to express myself alcoholically."
wait to work with her."
Thcy spend the next five minutes trying to deline We first met in that place on the Quays. Ray staned chatting
perfbmrance art, finally deciding it's an,,lhing that isn,t me up. When I told him my prot'ession, he'd taken my hand
static. melodramatically and held it against his chesl:

4B 49

I
 "So, give me your expert opinion: am I still alive?,, A Floppy Hair is smiling down at me, breathless and
laugh like a sea lion in distrcss.
handsome.
I wasn't sure of him. He was on the plump side, even
"l think you left this," he pants.
then, and had hair like Worzel Gummidge.
I already had my I take the box and call out a thank you to his retreating
eye on the guy in tight trousers behind
the bar. But when a back. Big Specs is giving him the thumbs up. I look down
gang of lads came in to have a laugh
at the queers, Ray and at the box. What was I thinking?
I staned carnping it up: rny.lulian to his Sandy.
Ofcourse, it The queue for Madame Tussaud's isn't too bad. Ahead
ended in a fight, and I had to pay for
the window. The next ofme, three English ladies arc reliving past campaigns.
ntorning, when Iwoke up to his honey_coloured eyes, I
"No, Lillian, this is nothing. We queued for five hours to
knew - as my mother used to say
- therc was no use see the Queen Mother lying in state, didn't we, Jean?"
dancing round life.
Her little sidekick springs to life.
"Ooh, yes, Margaret, that was one olour best days out."
I check the tine. I,ve still another hour I could
stay here, "That's right. God bless the Queen Mum."
but a thuggish wasp is taking an interest
in my letiovers.
I wait at the lights, looking down Wilhelmstrasse.
The I'd been dropping heavy hints about Barcelona. lt was ages
British Iimbassy is there, a shrine to (.ool
Britannia: blond since we'd had a proper break. Visiting the caravan was all
stone and a zesty blackcurrant that I iust know pernilla right, but you couldn't call the odd weekend in Wicklow a
would adore. ln the middle dis(ance. block
upon block ol. holiday: Ray still had to take the dog out for his long walks.
unexceplional apartments occupy the site
ol Hitler,s I had one last go at seducing him with the prospect of hot
Chancellery, "...where the bureaucracy
of genocide was chocolate and chunos at Cafö Opera on Las Ramblas . He'd
enacted," Ray's voice reminds me.
looked up from his 700 page brick on the history ol
The little red man changes to a little green
one. but Cennany.
befbre I can step into the road there,s a hand at
mv elbow. "But what about Smoky?"

50 s1
 desk is still
And that was that. But then, one aftemoon. solttewhere When I look up, the surly man behind the ticket

betwcen the fall ofNapoleon and the rise of Bismarck, hc'd waiting for a resPonse.

snapped the book shut. "Just the one, Please "

The security guard wants to know what's in the
box
"We're going to Berlin!"
As the
It wasn't Barcelona, but I wasn't going to argue. Once When I rell him, hc snift! and points to the machine'
in an X-
wc got here, Ray was alrrost insensible with pleasure. It box passes through, I woncler what ashes look like
ray machine. Then, I wonder if that's what l've become;
an
was only our tirst day, and we'd already cramrned in a

wall<ing tour ol Isherwood's Berlin, four museun'ts and a ex-Ray machine.

phobgraphy exhibition by an unpronounceable Hungarian.
And thcn it was the waxworks.
"Why do you want to go there?" My l'eet were
It's fbur years since our fißt visit Gone are Sarkozy
yesterday's men'
and, Pope Bencdict and Lance Anrstrong:
women
m melted down and recast as some boy band But the

meltdown. are holding their own: Angela Merkel, looking presidential

looking
"[ want to go crerlwherei This placc is lircking behind an eagle-topped podium, and a l'erocious
amazing!" Nina Hagen, llaunting her hairy armpits'
I Ie'd never shorvn any interest in wax museums before, In the next room, a young lad with a daft haircut is
not even when the Dublin one re-opened on College Green. taking a picture of his girlfriend posing next to Marilyn
Monroe. The girlfriend is grinning drearnily at her
beau'
But here he was, snrdying every one of them: Oscar
He
winners, sports heroes, even obscure politicians. Marilyn seems to be laughing at his mini Mohican
takes the picture befbre I can move out of shot
How often
lle'd taken a special intcrcst in one figure, a stocky man
part of
with crossed fingers hidden behind his back. do we end up in othct people's pholographs' become

'Walter Ulbricht," Ray rcponed fron the caption, "Used other peoPle's stories?

to be the head of East Genrrany. IIe said nobody intended to l'm conlionted with a vision of
Oulside the waxworks,

build a wall. Then. he buill the Wall." the apocalrpse. Unter den Linden is in distress Great

52 53
 "The Zeughaus was once the imperial armoury and
is
gashes have been ripped into ils heart, uncovering writhing

pipes and twisted tramlines reminiscent of the photographs now the repository for German history'" Ray's running
Diet
Ray showed me of Berlin circa. 1945. Large signs explain commentary talks me through the Germanic tribes' the

that a new U-Bahn line is under construction. Through the of Wonns, the Peace of Westphalia, the Friedrichs' the

din ofindustry Ray's voice reminds me that during the war, Wilhelms, the Friedrich-Wilhelms.

after the zoo took a direct hit, Berliners had woken up to The second floor is devoted to the inhumanity of
crocodiles and snakes crawling through the streets. humanity: war, holocaust, from petty indignities to
unspeakable cruelry I to sit down, placing the box
have

me. On the wall ahead, a screen is showing a film

of
History: it was the one fad Ray never abandoned. I irnagine beside
sweeps
it was working for the Post Office that did ir. You can't Berlin at the end of the war. As the aerial camera
spend half your life sclling slamps comrnemorating silently over the rump of a building I recognise it as the

Countess Markievicz and Patrick Pearse without some of Brandenburg Gate. The camera follows the line of Unter
den Linden, and reveals everything as a sprawling
rubble of
the gum rubbing off on you. Even the dog took second

place to pharaohs and Nazis. nothing. This is where I am.

After he sold the house, he colonised my linle flat with Behind me. a female voice breaks the silence'

his books on kings and pogroms and civil wars, and "So, now that we've got the kitchen done l want to

attack the boys'rooms. I've told Derek t want it all done

by
covered my walls with myhological creatures. There's one

ofa bull-god that I wake up to every noming. That damn Ch shnas."

creature never fails to freak me out. I still can't bear to take

it down. No-one can say he didn't try. Outside the history museum'

he'd grabbed my hand and hauled me across the road'

Inside the pink palace, t decline the smiley woman's offer ignoring the BEEPI BEEP! BEEPI of an angry Audi He
ofan audio guide ard make my way up the stone staircase. stood me in front of the mounted statue marooned on the

54 55
tratllc island. I'rn looking at it now, and the täce still "l can sit anY'where'}"

She breezes towards the kitchen'

"Of course! This is not
reminds mc of Bustcr Kcaton, But Ray wanted me to look
beyond the statue, back down Unter den Linden. He wanted America!"
box on the table'
n]e to see what he could see: young men marching to the I take a seat by the door and place the
corner' no longer
Westem Front, Ilitler's Brownshirts buming books, Stalin's The bickcring couple are in the far
embarking on her
tanks rnowing down workers, JFK and Gorbachev and bickering: he's studying his map; she's
Brecht and Rosa Luxemburg and crocodiles and snakes. second helPing of strudel'

Aftcrwards, I promised myself, if I ever came back I'd

cake' but it tumed into
revisit all the places we'd been to; give (he city one last It was supposed to be just coffee and
Berlin' I was
chance to seducc nre. lt'll never capture me the way it the last supper. Ray was babbling on about
him' not
captured him. It's a pleasant enough placc, and chcapcr than just relieved to be sitting down' I looked back at
repeated it' I still
London. But it's hardly Barcelona. And it's not hon're. sure what t'd iust heard When he
I look up again at thc statuc. Little shards of rain arc couldn't belicve it
starting to anoint the lace ol Frederick the Great. I "Don't be stupid, RaY "
"Right, I'm stupid' I'll remember that "
rerncmber Ray tclling me about the king's contempt tbr
going to get by without
passing popularity: "Put a monkey on a horse, and thc "Yes, and childish How are you

people will cheerjust as loudly. Oliver. are you listening?" a word ofGerman?"
"Don't ask me. I'm stupid' rernember?"
here with
Not much has changcd in the cathedral cafd. The reddish "And what about me? Am I supposed to move
Telt me, does Berlin have a suddcn
deficit of retired
walls are now greenish walls, but it's all much ths same as you?
that last surnnrer. Bowie's on the radio, Not,4s&es to Asltcs, nurses who speak not a word of German?"
in silence for a
thank Christ. That woLrld be too weird. t try to bnttonhole a He didn't say an)'thing We'd simmered

young woman swishing past with a tray of used cups. while, then t tumed on him again:

57
56
 "Thc cows abroad have longer homs."
He acnrally laughed:
"Another of your mother's gobbets of wisdom? But
what happened to her, Olivcr? SIre came back to treland
fiom Canada and spcnt the rcst ofhcr lit'e regretting it."
"She was homesick, Ray."
"And I'm homesick! Sick of home! lreland's on
bones of its arse. This is wher.e it's happeningl"'
I left the fätal volley to (he cnd.
"And whar about the dog']"
Suddenly, the anger on his lhce tunrcd to pain and he
put a hand to his chest.
I've tinally sbpped sctting thc table tbr two. After dinncr,
on Friday nights, I go down to that place on the Quays fbr
t'ew pints. Sorrrelimes I have a chat with the guy behind thc
bar He's filled oul a bir now. but hc's still not a bad looker
IIis boytiiend's not bad. eithcr.
l'rn checking ruy watclr rvhcn (hc door opens. I look up, but
it's just a party ol'Spanish r()urists, loud and chaotic. They
quickly decide the cafb is too small and unpack themselves
back into the street. ['m ge(ing up to close the door behind
58
them when I collide with a man in leathers. hair shaved t<t
the bone. And I have to do a double take.
I lis opening words are drowned out by the throttled roar
of the col't'ee machine. As we cmbracc, I catch the smell of
somcthing on him, cocoa butter, possibly. I take a step
back.
the "Jesus, Ray, you look f'ucking arnazing!"
And he does. He's lost all the weight, and his
complexion is indecently healthy llc thumps his chest.
"The angina's under control and thc hlood pressure's
down. Still life in thc old dog!"
tle nrgs playfully at my beard. I can't remember when I
last heard myself laughing.
"You always said I shottld grow one."
a "Better late than never."
Ilis smile fades as he looks down at dlc tablc. We lift the
box together, and lor a second we'rc home again, the dog
belween us. He takes the box. lolds his arms around it.
"Poor baby. It broke my hcart to leave you."
When he looks up, sadness is spilling liom his eyes
"Thank vou for this."
59
I
 The vet kept telling me there was nothing wrong, but the
suoky coat tumed a sulky grey, and the food was barely
touched. Taking him out was a nightmare. Anyone seeing
Blood Red Oxfords. Size 39
me drag a half-starved, reluctant dog through Vesey park
Emily Cataneo
could have accused me of aniraal cmelty. It was almost
a
reliefwhen I carne dow[ to find he was ro more.
Maryam stumbles off the train and scans Hauptbahnhof for
a place to throw away her shoes.
I look into Ray's eyes. They,ve lost nore oftheir hold over The shoes are blood-red oxfords, size 39, and on the
me. I start to tell hirn I,m so glad we,re back in touch.
but ride that carried her away from her city forever, her feet
he's tuming away from me.
swelled up, the back of her right heel crackling with dried
"Andi, kornm r.cin, sei nicht schüchteml,, FIis German
blood and hard skin ridging up on the bottoms o[her fourth
sounds casy, assured.
toes.
The young man at the door steps forwarcl, pallid an<1 She wants new shoes. She \r'ants them right away. She's
shy. Ray throws a proprietary hand across his shoulcler.
worn these shoes for four days - the shoeman delivered
"Andreas, I want you to meet an old frieud olmine.,,
them to her family's lownhouse the moming she left home.
She spent four nights on a train in these shoes, not sleeping,

her feet swelling and shrinking depending on wheflrer she

stood or sat or tossed and tumed. She wants to throw away
these shoes and find new ones. She wants to do it now.

But Maryam doesn't know that every city does shoes

differently. In Paris, they wear rose ballet shoes, the insides

caked with dried blood. In Prague, they wear velvet boots -

60 61

rl